Arts

By Meera Srinivasan/The Hindu Colombo, June 5: The Chitrasena dance school is located on one of Colombo’s busiest roads, but once you enter its premises, all you hear is exuberant drumbeats. On Saturday morning, the large thatch-roofed hall was brimming with children dressed in red and black. Seated at different spots, three generations of teachers from Sri Lanka’s first family...

By Azzam Khan/www.southasianmonitor.com Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh, the pride of the Bengali nation, the revolutionary who stood up against the British colonialists, against religious hypocrisy, against class and caste discrimination, is now being used for all the wrong reasons. He is being embroiled in the exact kind of propaganda that he abhorred. Nazrul now lies buried...

Dhaka, April 27 (AFP): Kasem bin Abubakar was told nobody would buy his chaste romance novels about devout young Muslims finding love within the strict moral confines of Bangladeshi society. And yet his tales of lovers whispering sweet nothings sold millions in the 1980s and proved a huge hit among young girls from Bangladesh's rural, conservative heartland. Now his work...

Chennai, March 19 (TNIE): In a shocking development versatile singer S P Balasubrahmanyam in his Facebook post claimed that he had received a legal notice from music director Ilayaraaja's attorney for singing the songs composed by 'Maestro' Ilayaraja at various concerts. S P Balasubrahmanyam's Facebook post reads "Couple of days back, an Attorney representing Shri.Iliayaraaja, sent legal notices to me, Smt.Chithra,...

Bali March 11 (AFP): Bali, a Hindu majority island in Muslim Indonesia, has decided not to cover up its statues for Saudi Arabia’s King Salman who was holidaying in the Indonesian island with a large entourage. A Hindu pocket in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, Bali is known for its statues of deities and semi-naked women. "We're just going...

Colombo, March 6 (www.bdnews24.com): Sri Lanka’s earliest contact with the outside world was with Bengal since it is believed that the Sinhalese race was created after the arrival of Prince Vijaya of Bengal with his camp followers in 543 BC. In the 19 th. and early 20 th. Centuries, it was Bengal which stirred and influenced nationalistic consciousness in the...

By Thulasi Muttulingam/Scroll.in In India, Rama may be the ideal hero, the god-king who rescued his beloved from the clutches of a demon emperor, but in Sri Lanka, it is his antagonist, Ravana, who is loved and mourned as a tragic, misunderstood hero. A hero whose fatal flaw perhaps was his hubris. Few people know the story of Ravana as...

Mumbai, January 31 (AFP): A Nepali who will become the first transgender model to walk the runway at an Indian fashion show hopes to inspire other victims of gender identity discrimination across South Asia. Anjali Lama, who was born a man in rural Nepal, was ostracized by members of her own family after telling them twelve years ago that she...

Kabul, January 18 (AFP): In the face of death threats and accusations they are dishonoring their families by daring to perform, the women of Afghanistan's first all-female orchestra are charting a new destiny for themselves through music. The group is set to be catapulted onto the world stage with a performance at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Zohra, an...

Panaji, Goa, December 10 (NIA): Conceived by Renu Modi in collaboration with Teertha and programmed by Serendipity Arts Trust, the art project, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ facilitates established artists of two countries, India and Sri Lanka, to engage in an investigative and research based art-making process together re-looking at the socio-cultural and historical dynamics of two cities, Varanasi and...

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